Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 9, 2011 13:32:34 GMT -5
Chapter Two – Opening the Doors
Flashback
Chris orbed in between two cars in the museum parking lot. On his back was a backpack with eight doses of the cure safely tucked in it. He felt like a grade school student heading off to his first day of school rather than an adult witch trying to get a cure for a magical curse to his older brother.
He stood up and walked toward the building. His eyes widened as he saw the crowd in front of the museum. The area was roped off, holding people thirty or so feet from the building. Policemen stood on one side of the tape working crowd control. Many people stood on the other side of the tape. Chris recognized some of them as coworkers of Wyatt’s. He ignored them and tried to look for a way in. The front door obviously wasn’t it.
A bouncing sound behind him caught his attention. He turned around just in time to see Emily Colson’s feet hit the ground.
“I assume by your entrance that your mom was able to fix your powers. Did you also find a cure for whatever is in there?” she asked as she walked over to him.
“How long have you been waiting here?” he asked, not liking the fact that she was so close to this.
“Long enough,” she replied with a shrug. “I figured you’d show up eventually and that this was the only way I was going to tell me anything.”
Chris sighed. “Emily, you can’t get so close to these things. It’s too dangerous.”
“This is my brother, Chris,” Emily reminded him. “I can’t do much, but I can lend my presence.” She paused before asking, “Do you have your phone?”
Chris frowned and pulled it out of his pocket.
Emily grabbed it and started pushing buttons, getting into menus.
Chris stared at her, too stunned to react for a moment. When he did, it was only to ask, “What are you doing?”
“Putting my number into your phone,” she informed him without pausing. “Call me when it’s safe to go find Nate.” She gave him a smile and climbed back onto the hood of the yellow Chevy Camaro she had jumped off of when she’d spotted him.
Chris glanced at the new entry in his phone’s contact list. He closed his phone and moved a little closer to the boundary the police had built. He didn’t bother getting past the edge of the parking lot. There was no way he was going to get in there through the front entrance. He focused his attention on being invisible and walked around toward the back. Though he passed two police officers trying, unsuccessfully, to open one of the windows, he didn’t find anyone around back. He relaxed and allowed himself to be visible again as he headed toward the door. He passed the stone railing to the stairs and did a double take as he found Brianna waiting there for him. “I thought you had something to do.”
“I finished it,” she informed him, “but now I have a problem.”
He looked up at her wearily. “What’s that?”
She held out a piece of paper. “The spell on this paper should get us inside, if I’m right about why we can’t enter.”
“But?” he’s expression growing wearier. “I head a but.”
“If I’m wrong, it’ll make things worse,” she informed him as she put the paper into her pocket.
Chris’ frown grew even more. “What do you need to know?”
“The spell I think was used, can’t lock doors physically,” she informed him as she pushed herself to a standing position. “What it does is prevent magical travel through its borders.” She gave him a wry look. “That’s pretty much been tested, since I understand your brother can’t exit and I’ve tried. I can’t enter through blinking.” She glared at the building. “I’m pretty convinced that it was used, but as I said, it can’t physically lock the doors, so it is used with another spell most of the time. I can’t test that spell.”
“How can I help?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “The thing is, all the other spell does is hide normal locks. You can’t see them and you can’t touch them.”
“So cast the counter to that that one, if the counter to the other one is dangerous,” Chris reasoned.
“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” she announced. “I need to know what’s being hidden or the spell won’t work even if there is something there.”
“So you need to know if there is an invisible lock,” he snorted as he looked at the door behind her.
She nodded. “But I’m not sure how and if I reverse the other spell and it’s the wrong spell, it might permanently mess something up.” She frowned as she realized she could no longer see Chris anywhere. “Where did you go?”
Meanwhile, an invisible Chris ignored her as he focused on staying invisible. Clearly she had a short memory, since he had told her about this power earlier. He walked past her to the back entrance, he eyes focused on the chains holding the door closed. “Chains!” he ordered.
Orb lights surrounded the chains, but they didn’t move an inch. He hadn’t actually expected anything, but he was still disappointed. He turned around to face Brianna and relaxed, allowing her to see him.
“Oh!” she gasped. “I forgot about that.”
Clearly.
“Anything there?”
“Chains on the door,” he announced. “Do you need more of a description than that or will that suffice?”
“No that will work,” she agreed quickly. “Thanks.”
“So what’s next?” He asked as he glanced back at the building. “Will those spells you have work?”
She pulled the paper back out of her pocket and unfolded it. “Yes, it should.” She looked down at it and began to read. “Unchain this door, let all pass thru. Make visible bonds, let magic thru. All attempts go through the door. Release the evil from its core.”
“Evil!” Chris exclaimed even as he saw the chain on the door became visible.
“Yes,” she agreed. “There’s more to this than you know, but you don’t need those details now. Get that chain off the door while I undo the other spell.”
“Why couldn’t you undo the other one first?” he asked as he held out his hand. “Chain!” Once more orb lights swirled around it and nothing else happened.
Brianna scowled. “Looks like unless you can get that off without magic, I’m going to have to cast this other spell first.”
“Then get on it,” he ordered. He pulled out his phone and dialed the last number received.
Brianna sighed. “Within these halls good magic revive. As orbing returns evil won’t survive. Magical transport can from within, or from without be used to rescue them.”
“Wyatt’s not answering his phone,” Chris informed her as he flipped closed his phone. “Can we get in?”
“Orb away that chain and go find your brother,” she ordered him. “I’ll take care of the rest of the exits.”
“Chain!” Chris called out as he held out his hand once more. This time the orb lights swirled around and when they disappeared, the chain went with them, straight into Chris outstretched hand. He dropped it to the ground and orbed away.
As Brianna walked toward the next exit she thought about how she had located those spells.
The air was still. The room was dark. It was definitely not quiet. From the other room sounds could be heard of children reciting the spelling of words along with a voice on the TV.
It was to the sound of squeals of joy that Brianna blinked into Ry’s empty study. Keeping an ear open for footsteps, she whispered, “Entire reveal.”
A cold shadow swept through the room making Brianna shiver even as items appeared on the shelves, posters appeared on the walls, and a dart board featuring a picture of the local law enforcement officers. She rolled her eyes at the dartboard and the picture which was liberally sprinkled with holes and looked around.
She located a news article on the wall about a fire in an apartment complex. Several hundred people had been trapped in the building. Most of them had died. The doors had been magically locked in much the same manner as she believed the Museum of American History currently was. The word “victory” was hand written at the top of the article, but there were no clues as to what spell had been used.
“Uncle Ry, why couldn’t you have understood?” she whispered sadly. She knew there was little of no chance for most of her dead mother’s coven, but they had always been good to her and it made her sad to see them as they truly were.
Footsteps reminded her of what she was after and she looked toward the bookcase. She pulled off a likely seeming book, flipped it open to confirm it’s contents, and sighed in relief upon seeing that it was what she thought it was.
“Entire hide,” she whispered as she tucked the grimoir under her arm. She heard the footsteps coming closer and blinked out with the grimoir even as the shadows hid everything in the room, again.
Ry’s widow and kids knew nothing of his other life. She hoped they never found out, but chances were high that they would. Those three children were going to ask questions when it occurred to them that they had magical powers, because she rather doubted Ry would have done anything to hide that from them, especially while magic was gone.
She was going to have to go back and hope that she provided a positive magical influence before someone else offered a negative one.
As soon as Brianna blinked into her bedroom she laid the grimoir out on her bed and started flipping through it. It took her almost ten minutes to find the page she wanted.
She grabbed a notepad and pencil and started copying the counter spells she needed, hoping that she didn’t have this all wrong. From what she’d read of the crystal, every minute she spent was one that made the situation worse and from the look of these spells, they were probably causing their fair share of trouble for the people in the building.
Once she finished copying, she stuffed the grimoir on her shelf. “Hide from every prying eye, this thing I want no eye to spy. Until the time I want it back, change the image, no detail lack.”
She stuffed the paper in her pocket and blinked in behind the museum. She surveyed it for several seconds before plopping down on the steps to try and think of a solution. It had been less than a minute later when Chris had rounded the corner and presented the solution she needed.
“Unchain this door, let all pass thru. Make visible bonds, let magic thru. All attempts go through the door. Release the evil from its core.”
As soon as the chain holding the door closed was visible she realized that she had a problem she’d forgotten to consider. Without Chris there, she had neither the magic to simply move it nor the strength to remove it on her own. Well, there were other ways to get around this. It was just going to take some creativity, especially when she got to the doors up front. For now, it was time to get to work.